It sounds like a problem with your laptop. How are non-internet things working? I mean, does it take a long time to boot the laptop or does software load slowly. If so, that could be a ram issue or many things really. If it is only the websites that are loading slow, check your connection speed. Do an online speed test with both your laptop and desktop. Compare the two. If your laptop has a slower connection, you might be too far from the router, or may be getting interference.

digitalimpact said
All I can say is that I lost hours of development while creating a child theme for a customer, simply because the previous theme used was heavily relying on shortcodes (which were obviously not present in the new theme)...

I’ve been there, which is exactly why I was concerned about this for my own themes. Maybe an admin notice stating that the plugin must be activated for added features, as well as a reference to the documentation page would reduce some of the support issues/ratings issues.

greenshady said
Any theme author who is adding these things to their themes is flat out doing it wrong. They belong in a plugin. You can package that plugin with the theme or release it separately, such as on WordPress.org.

Is it bad practice to package a plugin with a theme? I mean, do reviewers care about this problem and see it as a good thing or will they see it as a negative that the user has to install a plugin? Also, if an author is packaging shortcodes and custom post types, all JS and CSS would also need to be included with the plugin right? It seems like this could get a lot deeper than just shortcodes and CPTs.

Very nice theme! Congrats. I did notice that your add to cart button overlaps the title when you have a product with 2 line title. Its an easy fix though. You can see on categories-accessories page. Still, very good looking theme.

This may have been a topic here before, but I can’t seem to find any “solution” posts. What measures are theme authors taking to ensure all is not lost when the user changes themes a year down the road? Is including a plugin to handle shortcodes and custom post types a bad idea? To me, that seems to be the only way these functions will remain useful.

Or, are authors viewing things as a “by changing themes, they have made a decision to drop those functions” kinda thing? It would be great to not set a user up for a huge headache down the road.

I apologize if this topic has been beaten to death already. Thanks for your input.

You might not find a theme that is setup this way “out of the box” but any theme that has a widgetized sidebar will allow you to add a form. Just use a free plugin like Contact Form 7 or something. If you find a theme in which you like the form styling, give it a go.